Election 2026: Assembly Democrats Lucan, Elward agree on policy, spar over outside money
The two Democrats competing to succeed Assemblymember Damon Connolly agreed on most policy questions at an online candidate forum, but Marin Supervisor Eric Lucan and Rohnert Park Councilmember Jackie Elward sparred over the millions in outside money flooding their race.
The Sept. 30 webinar was hosted by the Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers, a Marin taxpayer-advocacy group, and moderated by Marin Independent Journal columnist Dick Spotswood.
Both candidates said they support state funding to finish high-speed rail, oppose Proposition 43, which would make local tax measures put on the ballot by citizen initiative harder to pass, and would have backed a police and firefighter pension bill Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last month. Lucan’s answers centered on financing tools for housing, Elward’s on local control and accountability for state spending.
Election 2026: Read complete coverage at thearknewspaper.com/election2026
The 12th Assembly District covers all of Marin County and part of Sonoma County, including Rohnert Park and a portion of Petaluma. Connolly, D-San Rafael, is running for the state Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Mike McGuire, who is termed out.
Lucan, a former three-term Novato councilmember and mayor elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022, led the six-candidate June 2 primary with 28.3%. Elward, a former Rohnert Park mayor and an educator who came to the U.S. from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was second at 22.6%. Under California’s top-two system, the two highest vote-getters advance regardless of party.
Tiburon Councilmember Holli Thier, the only candidate from the peninsula, finished fourth at 14% and conceded in June. Lucan led on the Tiburon Peninsula in early returns, with 28.7% of the 4,712 votes counted at the time, ahead of Thier at 23.6%.
A fight over who is paying
Spotswood asked each candidate how big money would affect their decisions in Sacramento. He said Lucan had received $551,000 in September from Grow California, a political action committee founded by tech and cryptocurrency billionaires Tim Draper and Chris Larsen.
Lucan said that was wrong.
“I did not receive that contribution, and I have not received any money from that group. Those are independent expenditures that are happening completely without my knowledge,” he said.
Independent expenditures — spending by outside groups for or against a candidate — face no contribution limits under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, so long as the groups don’t coordinate with the campaigns they help. Grow California spent about $750,000 opposing Elward and about $300,000 supporting Lucan in the primary, according to KQED.
State filings list the September money as independent spending: about $551,000 supporting Lucan dated Sept. 28, and about $391,000 more dated Oct. 5.
Lucan called the spending a disservice to both candidates and to the district and said he wanted all of it to end, whether it came from “AI, crypto, billionaires, labor groups, trial attorneys, you name it.”
“I’m calling on them to stop, and I’m calling on them to stop now, so that we can get back to our message,” he said.
He said his campaign has drawn more than 1,300 individual contributions, which he said gives it the lowest average contribution in the race.
Spotswood then put the same question to Elward, saying she had received about $1.15 million over the past three months from the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and related entities.
That money, too, went to an outside committee rather than to Elward’s campaign. A committee sponsored by the California Labor Federation to support her had raised $1.15 million this year as of Sept. 19, according to state filings. Since Sept. 11, it has reported about $832,000 in independent expenditures supporting Elward and about $86,000 opposing Lucan.
“I believe everyone spending money in our election should disclose their donors, regardless of whether I agree with their policy goals or not. Voters deserve complete transparency,” she said.
She said some of the interests behind the primary attacks on her were also financially supporting Lucan and that she had asked him then to publicly denounce the ads as false. He told her he had no interest in doing that, she said. Lucan did not respond to the claim during the forum.
“I cannot be bought,” Elward said.
The candidates’ own campaigns are smaller. Lucan’s had raised $572,420 this year and had $222,199 on hand as of Sept. 19, and Elward’s had raised $452,779 with $166,137 on hand, according to state filings.
Elward said outside money and dark money need to be taken out of elections despite Citizens United.
“One hundred percent agree,” Lucan responded.
On the Nov. 3 ballot, voters will decide Proposition 4, which would lift California’s ban on public financing of campaigns.
Two approaches to housing
Both named the cost of living as the district’s top issue, and both turned first to housing.
Lucan said his first bill would aim to bring back redevelopment agencies, which the state abolished in 2012. The agencies used tax-increment financing, borrowing against the future growth in a project area’s property taxes to pay for projects. He said Novato used it to build deed-restricted homes that buyers could still build equity in, and he said he would look at why construction-defect liability laws have all but stopped condominium construction.
He also said affordability limits, which are pegged to each county’s area median income, are too coarse for Marin, where a project priced at 80% of the countywide median can rent at roughly market rates in places such as Marin City, the Canal district in San Rafael and parts of Novato and Fairfax.
“It’s affordable by county standards, but it’s not affordable where it’s getting built,” he said.
Elward said developers “have way too much power” and that state housing law shouldn’t be “one size fits all” for communities facing wildfire risk, limited evacuation routes and strained water systems. She said she backs infill, accessory dwelling units, converting unused buildings and urban growth boundaries. She opposes broadly weakening the California Environmental Quality Act, the state law requiring environmental review of development.
“I am all about protecting CEQA,” she said.
Simply building more, she said, “does not automatically mean more affordable housing.”
Lucan said rolling back recent state laws that override local planning and environmental review isn’t where he would spend his effort, because he didn’t think it would succeed. He said the state should instead give local governments money to reward projects that meet community needs — the approach Marin County has taken with the $5 million a year it puts into its housing trust fund, which can award $50,000 to $100,000 per unit.
Pensions, taxes and AI
Both said they supported Assembly Bill 1383, which would have lowered the normal retirement age for police and firefighters from 57 to 55 under the state’s 2012 pension reform law and let safety unions bargain for richer pension formulas. Newsom vetoed it Sept. 20, citing the pension crisis that prompted the 2012 reforms. CalPERS projected it would add hundreds of millions of dollars a year to city and county costs.
Lucan said the bill would have left the choice of richer benefits to each local government and that he would look for changes that could win the governor’s signature. Elward said she has two brothers-in-law who are Marin firefighters.
She said she supports the safeguards in the 2012 law but that backing pension reform doesn’t mean every provision of that law “can never be revisited.”
On artificial intelligence Elward said she has called for a pause on new AI data centers until California sets environmental, labor and public-interest standards and said she doesn’t trust the federal government to regulate the technology. Lucan said his priority is protecting children from unchecked chatbots and making data centers disclose their water and energy use to local permitting agencies.
Elward used a rebuttal to quote an Independent Journal interview in which Lucan said the state should move cautiously to avoid clashing with the federal government.
“Whatever approach we might take in California, I would hate for it to be completely preempted by federal law that would then make it even more difficult for us to regulate,” Lucan replied.
Fire and rising water
On sea-level rise, Lucan said Marin has mapped its vulnerable shoreline but that the county will need federal help to pay for the work.
“It is a $17 billion fix in Marin County alone,” he said.
An official of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission cited the same figure in a 2023 briefing to the county Board of Supervisors.
Elward said California needs permanent wildfire-prevention funding rather than year-to-year grants and pointed to “improving the evacuation route, especially in Belvedere.” She also said insurers should credit homeowners and communities that invest in fire mitigation, a goal Lucan also named.
They differed on Zone Zero, the ember-resistant 5-foot buffer around homes that the state Board of Forestry adopted in emergency regulations Aug. 19, pending approval by the state Office of Administrative Law. The rules bar combustible mulch, firewood and new wood fencing within 5 feet of structures in state-responsibility areas and locally designated very high fire hazard zones, phased in for existing homes over three to five years.
Lucan said Zone Zero “is a good idea” but that mandating it is not, warning that it would fall to local governments to enforce and would lead neighbors to file complaints against neighbors. He said Marin’s Wildfire Prevention Authority’s home assessments and incentives are the better approach. Elward said legislators should consult firefighters and residents on the ground before imposing such rules.
Endorsements and polling
In closing, Lucan cited the support of five county supervisors in Marin and Sonoma, and 10 of the district’s 15 mayors.
His campaign’s endorsement list adds U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Jared Huffman, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, whose district includes the Tiburon Peninsula. It also names all five Belvedere councilmembers — Mayor Sally Wilkinson, Vice Mayor Kevin Burke, Pat Carapiet, Jane Cooper and Peter Mark — and three in Tiburon: Vice Mayor Isaac Nikfar and Councilmembers Alice Fredericks and Jack Ryan.
Elward cited endorsements from Connolly, Rep. Mike Thompson and Attorney General Rob Bonta and said she is the only candidate who has lived in both counties. Her list includes the California Federation of Labor Unions, the California Teachers Association, California Professional Firefighters, Marin Professional Firefighters, the Sierra Club and California Environmental Voters.
The Ark found no independent public polling of the race. An internal poll of likely voters conducted for Elward’s campaign by Fulcrum Strategy Group July 19-23 showed her leading Lucan 52% to 39%.
Video of the forum is at arkn.ws/d12debate. Ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, or dropped off by 8 p.m. that day.
Reach Kevin Hessel at 415-435-2652.